The Houthis say they remain undeterred after the latest round of strikes that hit dozens of targets.
The Houthi group in Yemen has again vowed that its attacks aimed at stopping Israel’s war on Gaza will not stop after the United States and the United Kingdom launched dozens of strikes overnight on Saturday.
The latest strikes, backed by six other allies, come a day after the US launched dozens of strikes targeting armed groups in Iraq and Syria that Washington said were backed by Iran.
The Houthis initially attacked only Israeli-linked ships in the Red Sea in solidarity with Palestinians, but expanded their attacks to include British and US ships after Washington and London launched strikes in Yemen.
Let’s take a look at which Houthi targets were attacked, what kind of weaponry was used, and how everyone has reacted to it.
The US and UK launched a barrage of strikes against Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen on Saturday, February 3. The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said it hit a Houthi antiship missile in the Red Sea on Sunday in a separate attack.
The US and UK said they targeted 36 Houthi positions in Yemen, while Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said the capital, Sanaa, was among the places attacked in Saturday’s strikes. So far there have been no reports of casualties.
The targets included underground storage facilities, command and control centres, missile systems, drone storage and operations sites, radars, and helicopters, according to CENTCOM.
The US military said it hit 36 Houthi targets in 13 locations, but as with many previous strikes on Yemen since the start of the war on Gaza, it refrained from disclosing further details. This was the third large joint operation against the Houthis in two weeks.
The Houthi targets were struck by both fighter jets and military ships of the US military, and fighter aircraft from the British air force.
F/A-18 fighter jets from the USS Dwight D Eisenhower aircraft carrier, British Typhoon FGR4 fighter aircraft, and US Navy destroyers USS Gravely and USS Carney participated in the strikes, according to US officials and UK Defence Ministry authorities cited by the Associated Press.
The US ships fired Tomahawk missiles from the Red Sea, it said.
Which Houthi targets were attacked?
The strikes come as the Houthis continue to launch missile, drone and boat attacks against Israel-linked commercial vessels and US and UK military ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden almost on a daily basis.
The Houthis say the attacks, which have disrupted global trade, will stop when Israel ceases fire in Gaza.
Some of the armed groups, which are part of the Iran-backed “axis of resistance”, have carried out dozens of attacks against US interests in the region in the wake of Israel’s brutal war on Gaza. They demand that Israel declare a ceasefire and allow humanitarian aid in the Palestinian enclave facing famine-like conditions. They have also vowed to fight the US military presence in Syria and Iraq and other places, which they consider to be “occupation” of their lands.
Syria’s eastern province of Deir el-Zour and the northeastern province of Hasakeh, where US bases are located, have come under attack for years.
The Euphrates River cuts through Syria into Iraq, with US troops and US-backed Kurdish-led fighters on the east bank and Iran-backed fighters and Syrian government forces to the west.
US bases in Iraq, particularly the Ain al-Assad base, have come under hundreds of attacks over the past few years as well. The base was where the IRGC launched missiles after Washington assassinated its top general Qassem Soleimani in January 2020. The attack left dozens of US soldiers injured, but none killed.
Iran-backed armed groups control the Iraqi side of the border and move freely in and out of Syria, where they man posts with their allies from Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah and other Shia armed groups. Tehran is the main military backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the decade-long war.
The US military flew in B1 bombers from the US to strike targets in Iraq and Syria.
It said the barrage of strikes hit command and control headquarters, intelligence centres, rockets and missiles, drone and ammunition storage sites, and other facilities connected to the Quds Force, the external operations arm of the IRGC.
Syrian opposition activists said the strikes hit the Imam Ali base near the border Syrian town of Boukamal, the Ein Ali base in Quriya, just south of the strategic town of Mayadeen, and a radar centre on a mountain near the provincial capital that is also called Deir el-Zour.
Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said 29 rank-and-file fighters were killed in those strikes, according to AP. media could not independently verify the casualty figures.
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